


cast some light and you'll be alright, for now

by feathered (orphan_account)



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: AU, Anorexia, Eating Disorders, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Rehabilitation, Self Harm, a bit of fluff ??, it made me sad to write this, srsly please don't read if it might be triggering, way too much angst sIGH
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-24
Updated: 2013-10-24
Packaged: 2017-12-30 09:08:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1016761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/feathered
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry’s breath comes in gasps as Louis devours his throat, the underside of his jaw, bruises blooming. Harry just holds on, clutches at him like he’s the only solid thing, lets reality melt through finger spaces. Maybe this is exactly what he needs, what both of them need.</p>
<p>or</p>
<p>harry and louis are roommates at a rehabilitation center for the eating-disordered</p>
            </blockquote>





	cast some light and you'll be alright, for now

**Author's Note:**

> HUGE MASSIVE TRIGGER WARNING !!!! for descriptions of eating disorders (namely anorexia, but with mentions of bulimia/purging) and self-harm (cutting and also burning ??) please don't read this if it might be triggering for you, i really don't want to affect anyone in that way.
> 
> i started writing this a long time ago because i'm devastatingly masochistic....but it's even worse now because louis has lost so much weight recently and harry's also clearly thinner than he used to be (but i'm not suggesting either louis or harry has an eating disorder). anyway, this is sort of unfinished so i might write a part two if people like this first little bit....comments are appreciated !!
> 
> title from crosses by jose gonzalez 
> 
> my tumblr is louisinpanties

It’s Louis, sitting cross-legged on the mattress and holding a small titanium lighter in front of his face, flicking it on and off – slowly, pondering. The little flame fades in and out, its glow casting amber shadows on stoic walls, dancing. Harry wonders if that lighter would be enough to burn this prison down.

“Where’d you get that?” Gravelly voice, sleep-clouded, heavy.

Louis would probably want to go with it, turn to ashes, scatter in the wind.

“Nurse dropped it, I took it. Easy.” A hollow sound, toneless, empty.

Louis doesn’t look away from the tiny spark of fire. He’s thinking – about what, Harry isn’t sure – but there’s the audible clanking grind of turning gears, projecting from his skull and echoing across cryptic silence. His eyes are illuminated, glittering diamond blue, but they’re vacant and he’s not all there.

If Harry didn’t know any better, he’d think he’s possessed, a pyromaniac. But he’s not – he’s broken, he’s hurting, he’s shattered glass stained crimson, bleeding from the inside out. A mirror image of himself, perhaps even more warped and that’s a chilling thought. Harry shivers violently under thick wool blankets, icy flesh, thin, too much skin and bone and not enough else, but he can’t even relish it because Louis is still flicking that fucking lighter.

“Would you just fucking _stop?_ ” Harry cups his hipbones like coffee mug handles. They’re still there, pushing at skin, bruising. Good.

Louis’ eyes shine murderous. He strips his sweatpants, balls them up, hurls them violently at the wall. Harry stares. His legs are matchsticks and pale moonlight filters through the void between his thighs. Harry’s skin sizzles ugly emerald, envy like wildfire, scorching.

“They made me eat pizza,” head bent, barely above a whisper.

Harry knows the feeling. That first meal, skeletons waiting on death row, injected with fat and grease and sugar and calories, execution. All eyes on the victim, strapped to cold metal.

“Pizza,” he continues, voice rising in pitch, manic, “fucking _pizza_. Three whole slices with cheese and sausage and pepperoni and they all just _sat_ there, _staring_ at me and I can’t get it out and I’ve worked so hard for them to fucking ruin _everything_.” Louis drops his head again, murmuring almost incoherently. _Have to get it out, get it out, go away, please, god._

“Tried cutting it out, didn’t work,” he glances at Harry, twisted smirk. “Can’t do it like you can.” Harry closes his eyes, cool blade against inner thighs, hot, crimson beads. So nice.

“Thought I’d try something a little different,” Louis flips the lighter in his palm and Harry knows. He sits down carefully, spreads his legs, pinches skin from fragile bone, the flame ignites.

Harry buries his face in the pillow and tries not to hear the sharp intakes of breath as Louis chars his own flesh.

He falls asleep. The smell of seared tissue penetrates his nightmares and Louis’ body burns in a funeral pyre.

-

Night comes again and Louis sobs and it’s the worst sound Harry’s every heard.

_Ice cream, ice cream, you ate_ ice cream _, fucking_ stupid _you’re going to be so fat, already so fat, obese, disgusting, you’re repulsive and no one wants to look at you…it won’t go away, you’re a failure, can’t cut, can’t throw up, can’t even fucking burn, god, hurts so bad…_

Harry’s feels like he’s laid his body across hot coals because he’s accustomed to his own pain but experiencing someone else’s, he can hardly fathom it.

So he crawls in next to Louis’ limp body and cuddles him in. Louis crumples against Harry’s chest and clutches at his shoulder blades, fingernails digging half-moons and tear stains on his white t-shirt. Harry tiptoes his fingers along the knobs in his spine and he’s afraid it might rip right through skin like paper.

He kisses him then, faintly, whisper-soft, unsure if this is okay. It must be, because Louis immediately angles his jaw upward and suddenly Harry doesn’t know what to do with his hands so they pause, resting gently on his lower back. Louis is still crying, tears drip onto Harry’s cheeks and his lips taste salty but they’re soft and pliant and he likes this.

He likes it even more when a hot little tongue slides in between his lips and there’s a small body pressing flush against his own and fingers twisting in his hair. There are sharp bones knocking into more sharp bones and it hurts but it’s such a delicious feeling. Louis licks into his mouth slick and messy and Harry presses a beautiful arch into his back and he’s making these soft little sounds that send shivers reverberating through Harry’s veins. Then there are lips and teeth at his neck, biting up along a tendon like they’re trying to tear skin. Harry’s breath comes in gasps as Louis devours his throat, the underside of his jaw, bruises blooming. Harry just holds on, clutches at him like he’s the only solid thing, lets reality melt through finger spaces. Maybe this is exactly what he needs, what both of them need.

He wants more, wants _everything_ , but he knows he can’t push it. He’s back in his own bed when morning rolls around.

-

Harry holds his hand under the table at breakfast; he doesn’t know if he’s trying to comfort Louis, or himself. His plate of food is scary, but Louis’ is scarier. A teetering stack of buttermilk pancakes, dripping real butter and sugar-laden maple syrup, eggs, yolks and all, bacon and sausage links slick with a layer of greasy fat. Harry gets one less pancake and a shiny red apple instead of sausage because he’s been good. It’s still two pancakes, three eggs, and three strips of bacon too much.

Louis cries silently, tears slipping over hollow cheeks, and Harry watches his throat bob as he swallows infinitesimal bites. He clutches at his stomach every so often, like he’s being poisoned. Harry knows the feeling; he feels it now, choking down his own meal.

Food is medicine, they tell him.

_Bullshit_ , Harry thinks.

Food is more like arsenic, burning organ tissue because it doesn’t belong there.

“They’re staring again,” Louis whimpers quietly, this pathetic little sound that sends Harry’s heart crashing into his ribcage. His eyes are downcast and sad and the syrup is slowly turning everything on his plate to a brown-tinged mush.

Everyone stares, ever since he got here. They’re only staring because Louis is so pretty. So delicately pretty and fragile and small. They’re equal parts jealous and enamored, just like Harry is.

“Shh, don’t mind them, love. It’s okay,” Harry whispers and strokes long fingers across the soft of his palm, juxtaposed against rough gashes on birdlike wrists.

Louis sniffles a little, nodding.

Half an hour later, two plates are sticky and mostly empty which placates the shrill nurses who send them off to group. Harry wants to scoop Louis up in his arms and carry him there but they’re not supposed to have physical contact with other patients so Louis trails slowly behind.

-

Louis doesn’t talk and they don’t force him because he’s new. He curls his body inward, enveloped by overstuffed couch cushions and wrapped in a giant afghan but shivering anyway because he’s all bones. All bones and nothing else. He looks like a baby bird and Harry worries that if he takes too deep a breath he’ll break apart.

His eyes don’t leave Harry’s face, blue like ice, watery and pleading.

Harry doesn’t talk either, and that makes the group leader angry. Her name is Gina and she has dark, curly hair and a clipboard that seems almost attached to her palms. She doesn’t have nice, soft curls like he does, though; her’s are more on the level of a really awful perm and Harry thinks that’s part of the reason why he hates her. Gina and her stupid curls and saccharine voice and the ubiquitous clipboard that spells out everything they never wanted anyone to know.

Gina’s eyes are saturated with passive aggression because Harry usually talks, he’s usually good. Today, he just stares right back at her, blankly, like he’s practiced so many times in the mirror. He curls his fingers around Louis’, shrouded by the blanket that fans out on the cushion beside him. It feels sort of like rebellion.

He doesn’t want to talk in front of Louis. Not that he knows why, exactly, he just doesn’t.

So he won’t.

Gina keeps her eyes trained on him, like she’s still expecting words to tumble from his mouth. Harry almost barks a laugh. He finds it astounding – and to be honest, a bit hilarious – that everyone working here is so absolutely naïve. They don’t seem to comprehend the resolve that Harry has, that every single one of them has. And of course they have it – it’s a necessity. It takes a massive amount of willpower to starve yourself three-quarters of the way to death.

Eventually, Gina sighs audibly and moves on, and Harry releases a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. He locks eyes with Louis again and icy little fingers grip more tightly around his own and Louis’ eyelashes flutter against his cheekbones when he blinks and _god_ , Harry thinks he’d do just about anything for this boy.

-

It’s 2:30 in the morning and Harry’s doing crunches on the floor. The ceiling tiles are ugly beige above him and all the little dots swirl together and make his head spin, so he closes his eyes and pictures Louis – pretty, tiny, perfect Louis – and keeps going.

The knobs of his spine grind against the unyielding surface and he knows he’ll have a constellation of bruises peppering his skin when he’s finished, but it’s sort of a nice feeling – knowing his bones still protrude enough to hurt like that.

How many has he done? He lost count after 500.

He breathes out through his mouth because his abdominal muscles are quivering to the point where he fears they might crumble.

He wonders if Louis is awake.

There’s sweat pooling in Harry’s belly button when he gets his answer. He decides he’s at 690.

“Harry?”

His voice floats past Harry’s ears, soft and fragile, like his bones, strung together in a haphazard skeleton. It sounds all wrong, like tapping a melody on a piano that’s terribly out of tune. He wonders if he sounds like that, sometimes. He thinks he probably does.

Harry stops at 700. He splays his limbs out, chest heaving, a spindly starfish on cold tile.

“Yeah?” He coughs around the word and it feels like someone dripped molten lava into the concavities of his abdomen, but he’s hungry now, so that’s something.

“My stomach hurts, Harry. There’s too much food and it’ll be the same tomorrow and I can’t do anything about it. Not a _single fucking thing_.” He sounds tired, deflated.

Harry doesn’t say anything; he just breathes. Each inhalation rattles his ribcage and he feels like his body is sinking into the floor. He want to cry, then, because Louis hurts like he does, and that’s hard to wrap his head around. Louis is too pretty to hurt like that; it makes him sad.

“Does it ever get better? All this?” Louis makes a gesture with his arm – Harry can see the shadow in the moonglow that’s cast on the wall.

Harry doesn’t have the heart to tell him that no, it really doesn’t.

“Harry? Come up here? Please?”

Harry thinks that Louis speaks in questions, sometimes. He also thinks that, even if he hadn’t wanted to, he would’ve gone up anyway, because Louis sounds so small and sad and his heart feels withered from it. He pushes himself to his feet, fingers pressed to the wall so vertigo doesn’t topple him like Jenga blocks, and he wonders if he can protect Louis from this.

Not likely. He couldn’t even protect himself.

He toes at the edge of the bed. Louis is laying on his side, knees folded up to his chest because his stomach hurts, like he said. And Louis looks up at him, then, hair like a feather crown on the pillow, _blueblueblue_ slicing right through the dark room and, well.

Harry slips wordlessly between the sheets and it feels like crawling into a cocoon. Louis doesn’t have much body heat, but what he does give off fills the whole space with a fuzzy sort of warmth that settles comfortably over the planes of Harry’s skin.

Louis makes a pleased little sound that draws a smile from Harry’s lips. He curls his body so that he’s pressed up against Harry’s own, chest to chest, bone to bone. It’s familiar, except this time there are no tear stains on his shoulders, so he supposes it’s nicer. Louis nestles his head into the crook of Harry’s neck and he smells like vanilla. He inhales slowly; it’s a cozy smell, spicy sweet like Christmas. The scent of Louis. _His_ Louis, he thinks before he can stop himself.

He feels a flush creep up his cheekbones. He wants so badly for him to be.

A whisper-soft kiss to the underside of his jaw presses shivers into his skin and a stutter into his tired heart. He wonders if Louis wants to be his, too.

“Harry,” Louis’ paper voice seeps through his pores.

“Louis,” Harry answers, because he likes how the name rolls easily off his tongue.

“Kiss me? Feels good…”

And Harry knows what he means. Not too many things feel good anymore – it’s nice when something does.

“Okay,” Harry says, and his lips are on Louis’ for the second time.

It starts off languid, all traces of desperation from before dissipated into the still, moon-flooded room. It’s sort of delicious this way, syrupy sweet and molasses-slow, Louis’ vanilla sugar taste curling into all the corners of Harry’s mouth, like smoke. Harry threads his fingers through the fluffs of Louis’ hair, and his hands span almost the entirety of his skull.

He thinks that maybe this – fingers tying knots in soft hair and Louis’ tongue against his teeth – is the only thing keeping him rooted.

He thinks that might be alright, for now.


End file.
